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Eaton Journal of Archival Research in Science Fiction
Deadline for inclusion in our first issue: February 1st, 2013

We are now soliciting articles for the first issue, scheduled for publication April 10th, 2013, and for subsequent issues of the Eaton Journal of Archival Research in Science Fiction. The Eaton Journal of Archival Research in Science Fiction is a peer-reviewed, open-access, online journal hosted by the University of California at Riverside, affiliated with the UCR Library’s Eaton Collection of Science Fiction & Fantasy. Graduate student editors run the Eaton Journal, with scholarly review provided by an interdisciplinary executive board made up of SF scholars, research librarians, and archivists. We are proud to announce the addition of John Rieder, Mark Bould, Catherine Coker, Jess Nevins, Rob Latham, Sherryl Vint, Arthur B. Evans, Roger Luckhurst, and Melissa Conway to our board.

The Eaton Journal creates a space for science fiction scholars to share their findings and their experiences within the several archives dedicated to science fiction found throughout the world. The Eaton Journal is also the only journal dedicated to providing a place for archival librarians to discuss the challenges of managing significant science fiction collections and share their best practices for facilitating as well as conducting archival research in SF.

Each of the journal’s bi-annual issues will feature three types of articles, each of which addresses a different aspect of our focus on developing an interdisciplinary dialog around archival research in SF:

Scholarly articles with a significant research component:  These articles will not simply be notes and speculations regarding material in an archive, but rather will use archival materials to build critical arguments that go beyond the textual and theoretical claims of conventional literary research.  While these articles must still be textually and theoretically sound, we hope to provide a venue for research that makes archival evidence its primary focus.

Methodological/Pedagogical articles:  Just as the journal will be a showcase for the best archival research in SF, it will also provide a space where SF scholars, librarians, and archivists can develop innovative and incisive strategies for research within the archive, and for integrating that research into the academic genres of publication, presentation, and dissertation.  From a pedagogical standpoint, the journal will be a space to discuss methods for developing, transmitting, and assessing archival research skill-sets within the academy, publishing articles that promote skill-sharing both among faculty and between faculty and graduate students.

Articles spotlighting neglected authors, emerging archives, and other research opportunities:  The third type of article featured in the journal is that which identifies newly discovered or undeveloped archival resources, or points to authors whose archival traces offer particularly rich opportunities for scholarship.  This will also be a space for articles that seek to expand the bounds of the SF archive, exploring new mediums, materials, or discourses as sites for SF scholarship.

Submission Information:

The Eaton Journal is a refereed and selective journal. All articles submitted to the Eaton Journal pass through a three-stage peer review and revision process: (1) the article is initially reviewed by the graduate student editors of the journal; (2) if it is judged to be potentially publishable, then the article is sent to our executive board for further review; and, (3) if the outside reviews are positive, an Eaton Journal editor is then assigned to work with the author to prepare the article for eventual publication.

The Eaton Journal of Archival Research in Science Fiction accepts contributions with the understanding that: under the author’s warranty (1) the article has not been previously published in English, and will not be published elsewhere until after it has been published in the Eaton Journal; (2) that in any subsequent republication of the contribution, the author will acknowledge its first publication in the Eaton Journal of Archival Research in Science Fiction; (3) that the Eaton Journal retains the right to republish the contribution in any issue or reissue of the journal in any form, including a possible future printed edition of the journal, and to reprint the contribution in any anthology sponsored by the Eaton Journal; (4) that the author has obtained all necessary rights and permissions pertaining to media quoted or reproduced in the submission; and, (5) that the author will be financially responsible for any legal action taken against the Eaton Journal by cause of his/her contribution.

The Eaton Journal of Archival Research in Science Fiction will not review article submissions that are under consideration elsewhere or that have been published previously.

FORMATTING GUIDELINES: When submitting an article to the Eaton Journal, please format it according to the following guidelines:

  1. Submission must be in MS Word .doc file format.
  2. Submissions should be between 5,000-12,000 words.
  3. For the text itself: margins at 1″, double spaced, font size 12 pt. or smaller.
  4. Submissions must use the most recent MLA Style for all documentation.
  5. Images and other embedded media should be placed in-text throughout the submission, not located together at the end. All images and figures should be properly captioned according to most recent MLA style. Authors are responsible for securing rights to all images and figures used within their submission. Authors must produce evidence that these rights have been obtained before an image or figure will be published.
  6. Submissions must include Notes and Works Cited at the end as regular text. In other words, please do NOT use the “automatic” footnote/endnote function on your word processor to generate these. They sometimes tend to disappear when traveling through cyberspace or when the document is converted. For matters of writing style with respect to endnotes, works cited, and references in running text, contributors should follow the style of the MLA Style Manual, 1999, or newer. Precise information on the following must be provided. For books: the place of publication, publisher, date, page numbers for quoted or paraphrased passages, and (for articles in anthologies) inclusive page numbers. If the edition cited is a later edition, provide also the date of the first edition. For articles in periodicals: volume number or (if there is no volume number) whole number, date of issue cited, page numbers for quoted or paraphrased passages, and inclusive page numbers.
  7. In order to ensure blind readings from the Editorial Committee and Editorial Board, authors must remove any identifying information from the content of the submission and from the document’s ‘properties’.
  8. On a separate document, include your name and your postal and e-mail addresses, the title of your essay, and a brief abstract of its contents (3-5 sentences).

Articles submitted for publication in the Eaton Journal should be sent to the editors at: eatonjournal@gmail.com.

Deadline for inclusion in our first issue: February 1st, 2013.

Thank you for your consideration,

Founding Editors
Jeff Hicks
Josh Pearson

Co-editors
Richard Hunt
Jennifer Kavetsky
Annie Schnarr
Anne Sullivan